At first, Ash had wanted to keep a low profile and avoid drawing attention from whoever might be watching.
But by now he had mostly given up on that idea.
After all, some unknown existence had already attached a system to him, so... if it was there, he might as well use it.
Although his body was badly injured, relying only on magic, in this labyrinth that was full of danger for the local people, every monster before him seemed utterly helpless.
Every encounter ended after a single exchange.
Those monsters didn't even have time to put up any meaningful resistance before their lives were ended.
Like wheat being harvested, they became experience points for this rookie adventurer.
Ash cut his way from the upper levels of the labyrinth all the way down to the lower levels.
Every place he passed through looked as if it had been swept by some terrible disaster.
No life remained behind.
Only silence.
This made Spider Girl incredibly happy.
Looking at the ground covered in "loot," she became so excited that she started dancing on the spot like a child.
Her small body bounced all over the area covered with monster corpses while she continuously let out cheerful chirping sounds.
It looked as though she were celebrating a holiday.
Meanwhile, Ash was immersed in his own combat rhythm and never noticed Spider Girl's ridiculous but amusing behavior before he had already reached the lower levels.
However, the journey wasn't entirely smooth.
When he reached the deepest area, he encountered a very strange being.
It was a gigantic earth dragon.
Walking on four legs, its massive body stretched over ten meters long, like a moving hill.
Not only did it have a horn on its forehead, but twisted sharp horns also grew from various parts of its body.
It looked rather strange, yet somehow cool.
Its crimson eyes carried pressure and obvious vigilance.
Its skin was dark blue.
Standing before Ash, it blocked his path.
"According to this world's standards, it should be Mythical-class, right? That would make decent experience points."
Ash narrowed his eyes slightly as he carefully examined the powerful opponent before him.
There wasn't a trace of fear in his gaze.
Instead, excitement flickered there, like a hunter spotting the most valuable prey.
He slowly raised a hand, preparing to cast magic.
The damp, dark air trembled.
Even space itself was easily distorted and fractured by his magic power.
Even he was surprised by this.
He hadn't expected the space in this world to break apart so easily before he had even used much force.
Of course, putting those unexpected factors aside, as a mage by profession, he still had complete confidence in overpowering the earth dragon before him through magic alone.
However, just as he was about to act, a series of tremors came from underground.
Behind the earth dragon, groups of earth dragons began appearing.
One after another emerged from the darkness like a tide that never stopped.
Their appearances varied, but every one of them gave off a powerful presence.
They surrounded Ash completely, forming what seemed like an unbreakable wall.
["First meeting, powerful one from another world."]
A voice suddenly sounded beside Ash's ear.
The voice was low and deep, carrying a strange power as it reached him directly.
"I got discovered the moment I arrived here? But this is...", Ash paused briefly, confusion crossing his face, "Telepathy?"
He wasn't unfamiliar with this method of directly transmitting information through the mind.
Still, hearing it from a monster caught him off guard.
["Correct."]
The voice sounded again, confirming his guess.
"If I said I came here for peace, would you believe me?"
At first, Ash had thought that even if there were many of them, killing one shouldn't be a problem with his strength.
But who would have thought they would appear in groups and even be capable of communication?
That changed his mind.
He lowered his raised hand and put on an awkward but polite smile, trying to ease the tension.
It wasn't that he couldn't beat these earth dragons.
He simply didn't think there was any need to fight a meaningless battle against beings capable of communication.
Besides, there were simply too many of them.
If they really fought, even if he won in the end, the cost would probably be enormous, and he might even end up in danger.
Because, the strongest earth dragons in this place seemed to have all gathered here.
What he couldn't understand was why these powerful creatures were so united.
Normally, weren't the strong supposed to live alone?
Besides, when he had previously used magic detection, he could sense that earth dragons didn't help one another when fighting other monsters.
'Could it be...'
'That they only gang up when they can't defeat someone alone?'
While he was pondering that, the voice answered him mercilessly.
["Of course not."]
"I see. So you don't believe me."
The smile on Ash's face stiffened slightly.
He felt even more awkward now.
However, the earth dragon shook its head.
["Don't worry. I have no intention of fighting. I also understand that I am not your opponent... so let me introduce myself first."]
The voice sounded roughly middle-aged, carrying steadiness and authority.
Through telepathy, the earth dragon directly introduced itself.
It was Earth Dragon Chief Gakia, leader of the earth dragons tasked with guarding this place.
The earth dragon race had its own mission and would never interfere with the outside world.
The higher-ranking earth dragons of the clan were bound by certain restrictions.
They could not leave this place easily.
In fact, no earth dragon could leave the labyrinth.
Lower-ranking earth dragons, those weaker beings, did not have such restrictions.
Another point worth mentioning was that in this world, drakes ranked below dragons, but drakes had a chance to evolve into dragons.
He also mentioned several other Mythical-class Queen Taratects.
They likewise guarded the deepest level of the labyrinth.
Then, his tone became more serious.
["They are already on their way. Compared to us, they may be less willing to talk."]
After introducing himself, Chief Gakia kindly warned Ash.
His huge eyes remained fixed on Ash, carrying a hint of scrutiny.
"I pretty much sensed that too. But from beginning to end, you still haven't said what exactly you're guarding. Can't you reveal a little?"
As he spoke, Ash carefully observed the surrounding earth dragons.
While talking, his gaze seemed to pierce through the darkness and layers of mist.
He noticed a strange door in the deepest part of the area.
The door stood there silently, giving off an ancient and mysterious feeling.
For some reason, his magic detection couldn't penetrate it.
It was as though an invisible barrier completely isolated the door from the outside world.
["That is the deepest secret of this world. If you insist on entering, it will bring disastrous consequences. Our master will not stand by and watch."]
Chief Gakia's voice echoed through Ash's mind again.
The warning in it was obvious.
"Your master?"
Ash frowned and tried to get more information from the answer.
["Correct."]
Chief Gakia gave a brief reply and said no more.
Yet his expression grew even heavier.
It was as though the secret behind that door was enough to overturn the entire world, making it worth guarding with the strength of beings standing at the world's peak.
"I see. I think I understand, at least somewhat, why powerful monsters like you don't leave."
Ash nodded thoughtfully.
Although he was full of curiosity about the secret behind the door, he also understood that now wasn't the time to act recklessly.
After a short silence between them, Ash was the one who broke it again.
"How long have you been guarding this place?"
His eyes left the mysterious door and turned toward Chief Gakia.
["Time is only a vague concept to us. Since the day we were born, we have carried this mission. Guarding this place is the meaning of our existence."]
As Gakia answered, the voice echoing through Ash's mind somehow carried the weight of countless years.
"Alright, alright. If you don't want to say it, that's fine. I'm not that curious anyway. I'll leave."
Shrugging, he didn't dwell on it.
He quietly turned and left, avoiding the possibility of being surrounded by those Queen Taratects.
Seeing that he held no hostility, the earth dragons silently opened a path and did not make things difficult for him.
Their mission was to guard the door.
If an ordinary human had entered, they would simply have killed them.
But Ash was clearly no easy target, so there was no need to waste themselves here.
After he left, Chief Gakia raised his head and looked around at the old companions who had accompanied him for countless years.
["A new variable has appeared... Perhaps the time for old beings like us to leave this world is not far away."]
As he spoke, there was no fear in his eyes.
Instead, there was anticipation.
He was looking forward to change.
He was looking forward to this world, which was slowly declining and heading toward destruction, finally welcoming something new.
After all, the planet covered by the giant magic formation called the System was already destined for destruction.
No matter how bad things became afterward, they couldn't be worse than destruction itself.
After all these years, he had grown tired of this life, waiting for an apocalypse that had merely been delayed.
A life with no hope.
Of course, since this was a magical world, destruction didn't mean the same thing as an ordinary planet dying.
The entire planet had already become extremely fragile.
When the time came, it would not merely be the planet's destruction, but the disappearance of the entire planet from this region of space.
The destruction of a normal planet would at most mean some disaster that made life impossible.
This was different.
After all kinds of natural disasters, everything would disappear completely because the Energy sustaining the planet itself would be exhausted.
The laws of this world, or perhaps this universe, were very unusual.
At least they were different from the world Ash came from.
Things like reincarnation existed.
However, under the influence of the System, this planet had also been separated from everything else.
———
At the deepest level of the labyrinth were the earth dragons and the Queen Taratects.
In this world, they were absolutely nightmare-level beings that could not be defeated.
Their power alone was enough to make any adventurer give up.
"But now there are even more mysteries. And... this is strange. Has my own system increased the amount of souls? No matter how you look at it, the souls of living things in this world are far too small."
After leaving the deepest level, some of Ash's questions had been answered.
Yet the total number of questions had increased once more.
Normally, in a world with a system like this, souls should be extremely abundant and powerful.
Reality was completely different from what he expected.
In the past, he might have suspected that this world's system was taking souls and turning them into experience points.
But now, as his strength increased and his ability to sense souls improved, he could clearly tell that those souls were being absorbed by the system he possessed.
After careful observation, Ash also discovered a very strange phenomenon in this world.
Here, when monsters killed one another, most of their souls seemed to be used to strengthen themselves.
Yet strangely enough, aside from sufficiently powerful monsters, all other beings in the world, including humans, possessed pitifully small souls.
If he had to compare them, the souls of humans in his original world were like large bonfires, bright and blazing.
The souls of ordinary soldiers in this world were more like tiny matches.
So weak they could almost be ignored.
"Could it be that this soul difference is why there's such a huge gap in strength? Hm. I don't get it."
Ash shook his head helplessly.
He couldn't figure out the reason, so he once again pushed the question aside.
Then he resumed moving carefully.
He planned to explore the lower levels above the deepest area and see if he could discover any new clues.
However, when he reached the bottom of a huge pit in the lower levels and was considering whether to simply fly upward with magic, he suddenly heard a familiar series of chirps coming from above.
'Waaaahhh! I'm gonna die, gonna die, gonna die, gonna die! Sorryyyyy!'
Spider Girl wailed as she fell straight down from above.
Ash instinctively looked up.
The first thing he saw was the round backside of the white spider.
She was desperately adjusting her posture while shooting spider silk from her rear.
The silk stuck to the not-very-sturdy walls around her as she tried to slow her descent.
At the same time, Ash noticed four giant hornets chasing after her.
Their wings buzzed loudly as they pursued Spider Girl relentlessly.
"What should I do? Dodge?"
A trace of hesitation crossed Ash's mind.
Although all spider monsters looked more or less the same to him, Spider Girl's soul gave him a unique feeling for some reason.
Of course... it wasn't human either.
The difference between her and ordinary spider monsters was extremely small.
Without paying close attention, it was difficult to notice.
He could also tell that she had changed somewhat.
Though she was still small fry in his eyes, she seemed stronger than before.
In fact, her growth rate was astonishing.
It completely exceeded the normal leveling speed of monsters.
After a brief moment of hesitation, he quickly extended a hand and cast gravity magic.
Skillfully reducing Spider Girl's falling momentum, he steadily caught the spider who was flailing all eight legs in the air.
'U-uooh? I'm okay? And this is... a p-princess carry? Something I never experienced in my previous life actually happened in this one...! Looking closely, this guy's actually pretty handsome. This is bad! My heart's beating so fast! Though I don't know whether spiders even have heartbeats!'
Being saved by a young man at such a moment made Spider Girl feel immense relief.
At the same time, she was so moved she nearly cried.
At that instant, she felt as though her heartbeat had suddenly sped up.
Even though she was in danger, the suspension bridge effect combined with her current embarrassing position made her face instantly turn red.
To her, this scene looked exactly like a hero saving a beauty in a romantic story.
She even felt as though the air around her had turned pink.
There was no way Ash could understand Spider Girl's thoughts.
The reality was very different from what she imagined.
At least from Ash's perspective, he had merely saved a strange spider.
Looking at the spider in his arms softly chirping and shaking her head, his feelings were difficult to describe.
It just felt weird.
After all, even if he wasn't human himself, there was no way he could recognize a spider monster acting shy.
'Did it really accept me as its master? Though... it seems like it evolved and got stronger, but looking carefully, I don't really see any difference.'
Ash lowered his head and carefully examined Spider Girl, trying to see what was different about this apparently evolved spider.
'Ah, at a time like this, c-could it be! A kiss? It would totally fit the mood! It really would! But no! I'm still a maiden! Things are moving too fast! Pervert! Absolutely not! Aaah! I'm such a sinful woman! But! Being attractive isn't my fault, so you can't take advantage of me!'
Spider Girl covered her face with two legs and forcefully turned her head away.
All kinds of strange images had already appeared in her mind, leaving her completely flustered.
"What? Even I wouldn't eat a spider raw. Why are you hiding? Are you worried about scaring me?", Ash muttered with a look of disgust.
Just imagining biting into her head and getting a mouthful of bursting spider guts made him feel sick.
Even his own words disgusted him.
'Hm? Why does he seem a little depressed? Rejected by a beautiful girl? That pessimistic? Well! Can't be helped, right? I'm a very high-level beauty after all! Though I'm the kind who stays at home and doesn't even have friends! But! Being a beauty is still a fact! You should... well, try harder, I guess? Someone like me definitely has countless admirers! I mean, even as a spider, I've already charmed someone~ Hehehehe!'
Used to finding fun even in difficult situations, Spider Girl jokingly admired herself.
She continued saying all sorts of strange things to entertain herself.
Then she stretched out a front leg, patted Ash on the shoulder, and put on a comforting expression.
She tried her best to look like an experienced romance expert generously consoling a rejected suitor.
"Come to think of it, after traveling to another world, shouldn't a beautiful girl or a goddess usually fall from the sky? Why is the thing I caught and princess-carried after coming to another world a weird lesbian spider? And this spider is so strange..."
Looking at the chirping spider in his arms that was patting his shoulder, Ash sighed with dark lines practically appearing across his face.
Although he had no idea he had somehow just been rejected by a spider.
Then he simply let go and tossed her toward the ground.
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